ABSTRACT
Attending is not a distinct kind of response, in the sense that feeling or other responses are, but rather is the beginning part of every psychological response, or adjustment, that the organism makes. It is the organism’s preliminary contact with some stimulus. For this reason, experiments on attending, although they may be concerned with a variety of actions—perception, feeling, attitudes, habits—will be found to emphasize the variables which operate in the initial phases of the total response.
